


Strangers In The Night

by mydogwatson



Series: WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS [24]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternative First Meeting, Angst, Drugs, M/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 10:47:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very alternative first meeting.  Two ships passing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers In The Night

**Author's Note:**

> Today's second story. This story happened, really, because I goofed posting part 3 of the series [Die Alone] and it showed up as a stand-alone story instead. Which meant that the series was not going to have 30 stories, which was my plan. So my little OCD turned up and all I could do was power up the I-pod again and do another story. But now I'm glad, as I rather like the result. Hope you do, too!

Something in your eyes was so  
inviting, something in your smile  
was so exciting, something in my  
heart told me I must have you.  
Two lonely people, we were strangers  
in the night.  
-Frank Sinatra.

 

John Hamish Watson was not known as a solitary man. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was commonly considered to be a “hail fellow, well-met” sort of bloke. Always surrounded by others, often in a sort of riotous jollity. They drank, they brawled, they whored and John was most often to be found in the middle of it all.

At least half a dozen different fellows would claim to be Watson’s best mate.

However, had anyone thought to ask John himself about his best friend, a slightly puzzled look would have crossed his face as he just shrugged. No name would come to mind. Sometimes he thought it would be rather nice to have a best mate, but he was not the sort to obsess over it.

Instead he just carried on being one of the boys and quietly became an excellent doctor. He thought it over without discussing his options with anyone else and decided to join the military. What it came down to was that John Watson was often an island of calm in the midst of chaos, but few ever noticed that fact.

Perhaps some of that helped to explain why, on the night before his first deployment to a war zone, John was alone in London. It was his choice to be on his own. Invitations had been tossed his way. Other members of his unit were even now gorging on steaks and beer at a fancy strip club. Some of his old rugby teammates who knew he was shipping out had offered to set up a reunion. Even his sister had extended herself enough to offer dinner and an introduction to the new fiancé.

But John turned them all down, without really knowing why, except that none of the offers seemed right. And so now he found himself sitting alone in this absolute dump of a pub, barely able to swallow the watery lager, trying not to think about going off to war.

As it happened, John did sometimes think of himself as a solitary man and honestly, he did not usually mind, but tonight he felt so alone that it was like a dull ache inside his soul.

**

Sherlock Holmes storming out of a family dinner was no new thing.

It was rather the norm, truth be told. Almost a tradition. Tonight, however, it was also terribly inconvenient.

The whole point of this particular meal had been to wheedle some money out of Mummy, as well as to somehow force bloody Mycroft to leave him alone. But he hadn’t even made it to the main course and now he was out on the street again. The problem seemed to be that no one was convinced that he was entirely clean now and planning on staying that way.

Not even himself, sadly.

He paused and cupped his hands to light the stub of a joint, which was all he had left. [And that didn’t count, right? He was neither snorting nor injecting anything, after all.] Once the pathetic leftover was burning brightly, he started walking again. His gut still churned from the humiliation he’d felt at the sneering laughter from Mycroft and the disappointed expression on Mummy’s face. His announcement had not created the excitement he’d hoped for.

 

//“Does one actually do that?” Mummy asked. “Invent a whole career?’

“I have,” Sherlock replied smugly, pretending to eat some soup.

Mycroft was carefully buttering a slice of warm bread. “And just what does a ‘consulting detective’ do, if I might be so bold as to enquire?” Disdain dripped from every word.

Sherlock was already exceedingly sorry that he had ever brought the whole subject up, but Mummy was always so insistent that he should do something with his life. What she really meant, of course, was something monumentally boring, like decide that he was finally ready to follow Mycroft into the government. As if that was ever going to happen.

In retrospect, Sherlock was somewhat embarrassed by the pride that had been in his voice when he said “I’m going to be a consulting detective. The only one in the world. I have invented the job.”

He didn’t even glance at Mycroft after his question about what such a job entailed. “When the police are out of their depth, which is always, they will consult with me and I will solve their crime.”

Mummy now looked slightly dismayed at the mention of the police.

Mycroft, of course, just smirked. “Oh, yes. I can imagine that Scotland Yard will be quite eager to line up at the door of that rented hovel to seek your advice.”

Sherlock finally pushed the soup bowl away. “Sergeant Lestrade said---”

“Lestrade? Isn’t he the one who last month found you passed out in an alley lying in a pool of your own vomit?”

Mummy made a sound of unhappiness, this time aimed at Mycroft, which was rare.

“That was simply a…miscalculation. And after he found me, I solved the prostitute murder for him,” Sherlock said viciously.

Poor Mummy was turning quite pale over the dinner table conversation.

Sherlock tried to recover his somewhat tattered sense of dignity. “Lestrade told me that if I…stay clean, he will let me observe some crime scenes.”

“I’m sure he feels quite safe making such a promise,” Mycroft said with a sneer.

It was then that Sherlock threw his wadded napkin across the table towards his brother and left the house, making sure to slam the door as he went.//

 

Now, he inhaled deeply once more on the last of the joint and then threw it into the bushes. Just ahead he noticed the sort of a public house where a man might find what he needed. Not that he intended to indulge in anything illegal. No, he was going to stay clean and solve crimes and rub it in his brother’s fleshy face.

But he went into the pub anyway.

**

John was still nursing his first drink. The pub got no better with familiarity and he was starting to muse about the pleasures that might be found on a battlefield. There was a small brawl in one corner of the pub, but he couldn’t stir up enough interest to even find out what it was all about. All too soon he would be doing quite enough of getting involved in other people’s battles.

“The bald one is sleeping with the other one’s wife,” a deep voice rumbled in his ear.

Startled, John turned and found he was gazing into a pair of verdigris and silver eyes. “What?” he said.

“You were wondering about the fight.”

“Well, to say ‘wondering’ is putting it a bit strongly,” John said.

The stranger didn’t wait for an invitation before dropping into the chair opposite John. He flashed a blatantly phony smile. It was so fake that John was convinced he was meant to know it. “Don’t mind, do you? You seem to be the only patron in the place who might not slit my throat on a whim.”

John smirked.

The gaze sharpened a bit. “Ah,” his unexpected companion said. “Although you are probably also the only one who could manage it efficiently due to your rather specialized training.”

“My training?”

“Hmm,” was the only response.

After a moment, John gestured towards the lager he was barely imbibing. “You’re not drinking?”

“I don’t often. And when I do, I prefer something that hasn’t apparently been brewed in the landlord’s bathtub.”

At that, John laughed and two eloquent brows were quirked in his direction. It had to be said that John was most often attracted to women, sexually speaking. Not exclusively, of course, because life was often rather miserable and definitely too bloody short to ignore an opportunity for some pleasure when it arose.

While this bloke was perhaps slightly odd [nothing wrong with that], at the same time, in a strictly physical sense, he was somewhat amazing. Tall, pale, with a tangle of dark curls, those unusual eyes, and a mouth that seemed made for, well, any number of things. John relaxed back into the chair. “So if you don’t drink much, why are you in a pub?”

“For the company?”

John laughed softly.

The eyes were darting around the room, but didn’t seem to find what they were looking for and so the gaze returned to John again. “But what about you? Nothing better to do on your last night before shipping out than this?”

“Better than sitting in this shithole drinking bad lager?” John asked. “Or better than talking to you?”

It almost seemed as if the lips were tempted to smile, which John chalked up as a minor victory. “Oh, I think vast numbers of people would say that almost anything would be better than talking to me.”

There was something vaguely twitchy about him, which reminded John a bit of his sister when she was in desperate need of a drink. He thought about that for a moment, but then dismissed it. “How did you know about the bald guy and the wife?” he asked. “Unless you know them personally?”

He sniffed. “Do they look like the sort of people I would know?”

They didn’t.

“Then how?”

“I deduced it. The same way I deduced that you are basically a trained killer about to ship off to a war zone.”

“Amazing.” John took a small sip of the lager, wishing he were just a bit drunk, as sometimes people seemed to find him more attractive when he was slightly intoxicated. “Well, except for the fact that I also happen to be a surgeon.”

Abruptly, he felt like a specimen under a microscope and then the other man frowned. “Damn, of course you are. How did I miss that? It’s always something.” Then he turned speculative. “A killer and a healer. You are rather remarkable for someone so utterly ordinary looking.”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” John said dryly.

Those words were dismissed with a wave of one elegant hand. “No, no, it’s delightful, actually. Despite the hideous jumper.”

“You’re not accustomed to paying compliments, are you?”

“Not really. Most people don’t deserve them.”

John counted that as a second minor victory. He just looked across the table, figuring that the night was passing with undue haste, and that the clever lad opposite would be able to deduce what was in his head.

He was not disappointed.

“Oh,” the stranger said after a moment. “Interesting.” Then a fleeting but genuine smile crossed his face. “I am no jingoist. Queen and country mean nothing to me. But, still, it seems a little bit cruel to let a soldier go to war without a proper send-off.”

Inside, John was enthusiastically celebrating a perfect goal. On the outside, he seemed to be considering his options. “And just what would you consider a ‘proper send-off’ to be?”

An index finger ran slowly across barely parted lips. “I think fairness demands that the soldier should decide that, don’t you?”

John smiled.

**

Sherlock knew that his tiny flat was indeed a hovel, just as Mycroft had said earlier. The difference was that he didn’t care much.

Luckily John [they had finally exchanged first names during the cab ride] didn’t seem to care either. He merely wandered the lounge and kitchen curiously, eying the various experiments set up on every available surface and the newspaper stories reporting grisly crimes sello-taped to the walls. Sherlock realised that the décor might have made many people a bit nervous, but not John it seemed. “You’re a special kind of odd, aren’t you?” he said lightly.

Sherlock snorted as he ducked into the alcove which served as his bedroom to sweep books and newspapers and sundry other items from the top of the mattress. “Should I be normal? That would be so boring.” Sherlock cast his gaze over John. To the casual viewer he would appear to be the dictionary definition of ‘boring’. A shortish man with hair that could not decide if it wanted to be brown or gold, eyes that looked too old for the face, and, of course, that jumper. A man who lacked the imagination to do anything in his search for excitement but join the military. Which was a shame, really. Sherlock could have shown him plenty of excitement without the necessity of war.

They had known one another for about two hours Sherlock was not bored at all. That was something of a record.

John, assuming that was his real name, [and Sherlock did not think the man was a liar] was a fascinating person and Sherlock wanted to uncover all of his secrets. Before he could start investigating, however, John was there, pushing him back onto the bed and kissing him.

Oh, that was interesting, Sherlock thought. Kissing was not something he had done a lot of. It was not necessary or even desirable in the kind of sex he generally had, which was most often an exercise in commerce. Drugs were not cheap, after all. On those occasions when he allowed himself to think about it, he was rather disgusted by himself and the things he did. Luckily those occasions were rare, because he was often high or needing to be high.

While he was lost in those thoughts, somehow they had both become naked and were wrapped together in the middle of the bed. And kissing. So John was a man of many parts: Soldier, surgeon, and a master at using his lips and tongue.

“This is nice,” Sherlock said, surprising himself. He was glad that his senses were absolutely clear for a change, because already this was a night he wanted to remember.

Which he would always want to remember.

He was vaguely aware that his arms were wrapped around John tightly, almost desperately. Meanwhile, John was crooning soft sounds into his ear, sounds that somehow soothed and comforted the hurting places inside that Sherlock never even acknowledged were there. Oddly, as his body was thrumming with excitement, his mind was settling into a kind of peace that was entirely unfamiliar.

John seemed fascinated by his hands, caressing each one in turn. “Are you a musician?” he asked. Then he kissed each palm.

Sherlock nodded. “Violin,” he whispered.

“Lovely.” The questing fingers moved up his arm and Sherlock knew what he was seeing. “You shouldn’t do this,” John whispered, moving his soft lips over the ugly needle marks. “You’re too special.”

“No one else thinks so,” Sherlock said and then wished he hadn’t.  
“Then they’re idiots.”

At that moment, Sherlock knew that if John asked him to, he’d give it all up, the drugs and everything that went with that life.. He could be a better person for John and in return, John could save him. They would run together through the streets of London, solving crimes and having adventures and it would be so perfect. He wanted to say all of that, but then John was asking if he had ‘stuff’ and Sherlock waved towards the nightstand. “I’m always careful,” he murmured. “Never share needles. Always use the things.”

“Good boy,” John whispered

And then it was all so very fine and he made sounds he’d never made and even better was the fact that he could bring those same sounds out of John. If John had ever made those sounds before, with someone else, Sherlock didn’t want to know about it. Finally, John was in him, coming, groaning his name and it was more perfect than any high he’d ever had. With one hand, John stroked him and Sherlock exploded in white light and ecstasy

Afterwards, they collapsed in a wet and sticky pile and fell asleep still wrapped together.

**

When John awoke, the sun was already up. He had a train to catch or risk being late getting to the airfield. But he still hesitated, watching Sherlock sleep.

The man was lovely in the soft morning light. He looked much younger relaxed in sleep. John already ached with the missing of him.

But this had all been a dream. Sherlock was like a comet that flashed through the dark night of John Watson’s life, making everything beautiful and exciting. But, like a comet, it was over so quickly. John was not the sort of man who would be allowed to dwell for long in such brightness. He knew that all too well.

He slid carefully from the bed, causing Sherlock to mutter complaints in his sleep, and dressed quickly and silently. It was for the best, really, that he just go before Sherlock woke up. He knew that, even as his heart yearned for more. Better to have them both remember the night as the wonder it had been. In the daylight, Sherlock would surely not want the awkwardness of his presence.

John pressed a light kiss into the curls, whispered goodbye, and left.

**

Sherlock woke up alone.

He could still smell the sex, still smell John, but the place next to him in the bed was already cold. He pressed his face into the pillow and remembered. 

Well, it had been ridiculous, imagining that there could be any kind of future between them. John was a doctor and a soldier and a good man. There was no room in his life for a drug-addicted freak with a made-up profession. All those places inside that John had healed last night with kisses and words were already hurting again.

After a long time, Sherlock got up from the bed, dressed, and went looking for his dealer. There was an ache inside of him that needed to be soothed and cocaine seemed the best way to do that.

Later, months later, he would finally begin to ease the hurt somewhat with puzzles and mysteries.

But it would be years before the pain was truly gone, not until the day an ex-soldier who looked so very ordinary limped into the lab at Barts.

fini


End file.
